Tom Katsouleas "It is during one’s undergraduate years that one discovers oneself, where one fits into the world and what it means to be human."*
Four years and $200,000 for a piece of paper and a false understanding of where you fit into the world.
Four years and $200,000 for a piece of paper and a false understanding of where you fit into the world.
If you spend $200,000 on undergrad, you're making a mistake. That does not make college a bad idea; it makes spending insane private-school money on college a bad idea.
A lot of the rest was paid for by working during school--I had the lame little jobs during school, but I also participated in Google Summer of Code and had a pretty healthy consulting company that I started and operated, employing friends of mine when I had more work than I could handle. Like I said--less than $25,000 for the whole kit and kaboodle, thanks to what really amounted to not a lot of work to make that happen. (It also had the nice side effect of giving me a really nice resume.)
In-state tuition is about 14-15k. Room and board is 5-6k. That's easily 20k a year (I paid north of 22k my first year) leading to 80-100k over four years. Not exactly something you can work through on a <$10/hour job (of which I have had many).
I left school with $9,800 in debt. Most of the amount paid off before graduation (at least 60%) was mine, the rest my parents'.
No, you can't work through it on a sub-$10/hour job. But I had those jobs, too: they were beer and social money. I set up my own consulting company and I did GSoC and made more than enough to put myself in a really good position coming out of school.
College isn't as affordable for most as it was for you.
I would, however, say that the majority of people in the startup world who seem to have a clue have had some college at the least, and that it's very valuable in and of itself for those people--which makes me think Thiel very misguided.
The local state school where I grew up runs about $1600/quarter. When I applied as a backup, they offered to basically waive my tuition because my grades and SAT score were good. Bright but poor kids should at least be able to get into state school for extremely low tuition.
Unless you're exceptionally bright, poor, or unique, it isn't affordable. The vast majority of kids (read: average, middle class folks) get stuck paying 85% of the bill.
I ended up going to a private school with tuition of around $30k/year. I got $16k/year in merit-based scholarships based solely on my work in HS... as a white, middle-class male. So I got stuck with 50% of the bill; my parents were kind enough to help with half of that. School-mandated co-op jobs (total of 1 year of them, in my case) definitely helped with the rest--that's part of the trade-off. By going to a well-known but more expensive school, I probably had an easier time getting good internships, which in turn helped pay off the higher tuition.
I think university is entirely worth it if you can realistically afford it. I met amazing people, learned some very interesting things that I would not have been exposed to if I were self-taught (Mentor Graphics software licenses are not cheap), and yes, got a piece of paper that says I hung around a certain school long enough to be given a Masters degree. I've got about $30k in debt. It's doable.
This is my experience as well. Admittedly, it was probably closer to $80,000 after everything, but it gave me exactly that environment.
I'm 4 years out of school, and I've made back the cost of my piece of paper.
People get so wrapped up in their college's ranking in US News that they don't bother to find out which colleges are good enough. It's kind of a silly rule, but I usually tell people that, as long as their college has a basketball or football team (no matter how horrible they are), it's probably good enough.
I feel like I got good value from the money we spent. There were other students, professors, events that I would never have encountered at another university. Unless something unforeseen happens, everything will be paid off in a few years.